Daily Yellowstone journal., 1887-07-17
SCENE IN THE PvRENeEs.
Picturesque Goats and Gostherds-A Oar
Ing Aerial Twig Cutter.

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Our solitude, however-voiceless and
lonely though it seems-is not wholly
unpeopled. The tinkle of a little bell Is
suddenly heard, followed by the sharp
rattle of falling stones, and up the deep,
rocky gully on our left (which almost
separates the main wall of the mountain
from the buttress Of cliff that forms our
t~errace) come a long string of genuine
Pyrenean goats, black, shaggy and wild
looking as any Of those I used to see wan
dering among the rocks Of Gilgal or on
the craggy heights around Bethlehem.
See how defiantly this big BILLY" who
leads the file losses his great horned head,
through the thick, black hair of which
his large yellow eye CLOVIS like a live coal
as he surveys us with a look of indignant
surprise, evidently wondering what ON
earth we are doing up here in his own
special domain.
The picturesqueness of the flock is fully
matched by that of the goatherd him
self, as he comes striding upward from
rock to rock with an elastic spring worthy
of our old friends, the warrior mountain
GERS of Montenegro. With his crisp,
black curls and olive checked face, his
spare, tall, sinewy figure, his fiat broad
cap, and rude mountain sandals, and the
long pole clutched in his hard brown
hand, he looks the very picture of one OF
those handsome, swarthy, brigand like
''muchachos' so often encountered by
Don Quixote and his trusty Sancho amid
the solitudes of the Sierra Morenas-a re-
semblance heightened by the rugged bor-
der dialect. more Spanish than French,
wherewith he greets us in passing.
When the goats and their leader have
disappeared behind a projecting cliff a
solemn hush falls upon the great life
guard of encircling mountains 90 deep
and universal as almost to justify Sir
Boyle Roche's famous ''bull," "Nothing
was to be heard but silence" All at
once, however, the stiffness is again
broken by q faint whirring sound, very
much like the winding up of a huge
clock, far away among the dark gray
rocks above us. Then a stone falls-an-
other, still another-and then something
that looks like a bundle of sticks comes
bounding from crag to crag, bringing
down along with it. in its final leap a rat
Ting shower Of pebbles and gravel from
the great heap Of rubbish piled upagainst
the base Of the cliff.
Are these forerunners of a general
landslip? And if so, will the gully that
lies between us and it suffice TO check it
before it can overwhelm us, or not? But
the calculation-which is not without in
terest for us at the moments nipped in
the bud by the sudden appearance of the
author of all this disturbance-viz., a
man in peasant dress, who is clinging
like a fly to the face of the precipice
about a third of the way up. So far as
we can see what he is about amid the
binding glare of the sun upon the un-
sheltered cliff, he seems to be cutting for
fuel the tiny clumps Of dwarf box that
cling to the higher lodges. These he is
making into bundles and finging down
to the foot of the cliff, to be found and
gathered up when he descends later on.
II is recorded in the veracious work,
the Koran, that Mohammed, in his
memorable journey to heaven m the
back of the winged horse, saw some
angels of such extremely ethereal texture
that 10000 could stand upon the point of
an ordinary needle. Our aerial twig
cutter, though very much less fairy like
in build than these singular spirits, ap-
pears to possess no small share of their
capacity for standing comfortably on
nothing. On a ledge 30 narrow as hardly
to give room for both feet at once he
keeps chopping and tying with all the
composure Of my old Vaudois comrade,
Philippe Marletaz, who In the course Of
n of our Alpine accents made a hearty
lunch with his legs dangling over the
brink Of a sheer precipice Of nearly 500
feet. Bundle after bundle does this dar-
ing laborer fling down, and seems to be
nearing the end of his perilous task, when
suddenly one throw falls short, and the
truant bunch sticks half way down the
earth slide on q heap of stones and rub
bish. This win never do. Should it re-
main there he will have to go out of his
way to get it in coming down. Accord
ingly, TO our no small amusement, he
begins to play a kind of perpendicular
game at bowls, finging several other
bundles at the castaway with steady aim
and in quick succession, apparently quite
forgetful Of the strong possibility of his
going after them head foremost himself.
At length a lucky shot dislodges the
vagrant bundle, and down it comes, hop,
hop, hop, to Join the majority below.
Cor, New York Times,